To the Radio Times, where Suralan Sugar turns his thoughts to Jeremy Paxman, and democratic scrutiny is the winner.

In order to publicise the forthcoming series of The Apprentice, Sir Alan has agreed to answer questions submitted by 12 celebrities, during the course of which he reveals such details as the fact he has now dropped his insistence that his wife refer to him as Sir Alan.

Eventually we get to Paxman's inquiry, which runs: "Why do you think so many people on television consider it necessary to be unpleasant to make their rather predictable point?"

And with that, I'm afraid, the Sugar pram is swiftly vacated of toys, as His Grace explodes:

"That's the pot talking to the kettle, isn't it? He should answer his own question. I mean, he is the most unpleasant person going.

I'd like to get into a debate with him one day, without him having a day to think up questions to make people seem awkward. I'd like to see how clever he is then.

Jeremy Paxman has never interviewed me. I don't know the fellow and I've never met him, but I'd like to be thrown in a room with him to debate something that someone throws at the pair of us rather than him having a crib sheet hiding under the table. In my opinion that's cheating, quite honestly."

Such an intelligent point, isn't it - the idea that preparing for an interview counts as cheating. But what has caused this demented aversion to the premeditated question? It's not the legacy of all those moments in the High Court witness box, when Sir Alan was forced to endure various prepared inquiries from lawyers in the course of suing newspapers whose sports journalists had libelled his peerless stewardship of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club. Although we do know the Sugar bottom lip was given to wobbling on those occasions.

No, the frothing resentment about what lurks under Paxman's desk seems rather easier explained. Beneath Suralan's Apprentice boardroom table, according to a former contestant, is a booster seat, the better to bring the diminutive knight into height parity with his henchpersons Margaret Mountford and Nick Hewar. So you see, there isn't room for a crib sheet under there - even accounting for the wafer thinness of Suralan's skin – and in light of his many and varied insecurities, we should say absolutely nothing more about this.